A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words
by sarcastic-southern-bookworm
Summary: ok i don't even know how to sumarize this, Lily finds a photo that leads to an interesting discovery, probably not the Lily your thinking of. written before DH so it's AU


A Pictures worth a Thousand Words

i don't even know how to sumarize this, Lily finds a picture that leads to a discovery about her parents lives probably not the Lily your thinking of, characters not mine except maybe Lily kinda, please read and review thanks UPDATE: was written before DH so is now officialy AU

Lily sat on her bed twirling her curly red hair around her fingers. She was absolutely board out of her head. She looked over at her trunk still full of her Hogwarts things. She'd just come home yesterday from her third year but she just didn't feel like unpacking yet. She'd already sent an owl off to one of her friends. It would be at least a day before she got a reply. So she stood up and walked out of her room hoping she'd find something to do in the rest of the house.

As she walked slowly down the hall she glanced up at the many family photos. The first one she saw was her mother and father's wedding photo. She seemed to have inherited both of her parents' hair. Her father had incredibly bright red hair just like hers and his whole side of the family. There was no doubt though that her hair got its curliness from her mother. Her mother had very curly, fairly bushy brown hair. Her father had a neat simple tux on her mother a beautiful sleek strapless white wedding dress. Her father's arm was wrapped around her mother's shoulder. They both waved and smiled lovingly at their daughter. The next picture was of her father's family. They of course all had that bright red hair. They smiled and waved as well. The next picture didn't move. It was of her mother's parents. Her mother had insisted that it be a muggle picture since the people in them were muggles after all. They were more pictures but she didn't go over these. She picked up her pace a little and skipped down the stairs into the living room.

It felt good to be home, but at the same time a little lonely she was so used to the crowded hustle and bustle of Hogwarts that her house seemed eerily quiet and empty. Her parents were both at work, which only added to the emptiness of the house. She was an only child so she was used to being on her own and entertaining herself. Her father had said he didn't necessarily want lots of kids. He didn't mind kids but he said he was already part of huge family there was no point in forcibly adding to this.

She thought about all of this as she skipped down the stairs. When she reached the bottom she looked over the living room searching for something to do. Her eyes fell on a cabinet in the corner where her mother kept shoeboxes full of photos. She walked over pulled the doors open and randomly grabbed a box. Carrying the box she went and sat cross-legged on the floor in front of the couch with her back leaning up against it the box in her lap. She lifted the lid to off to begin shuffling through the pictures. She had ended up with a box of pictures from her parents' school days. The first one was of Hogwarts from the front gate. These were magical photos so there were students walking around the yard and owls flying in and out of one of the high towers and there was Hagrid walking toward the castle. She flipped the photograph over and saw in fancy curly writing it said, "**Taken by Colin Creevy**." She flipped through more pictures. They all had the same fancy taken by Colin Creevy emblem on the back. She'd heard stories and seen pictures before so she knew who most of the people in these pictures were.

There was one of Seamus Finnigan and Dean Thomas goofing around playing exploding snap. There was one of her uncles Fred and George with her aunt Ginny sitting between them. They were ruffling her hair and laughing at some long ago spoken joke. There was one of Lavender Brown and Pavarti Patil giggling, gossiping and fixing each other's hair. Lily began to subconsciously flip through more pictures without really seeing what was on them while thinking of the stories her parents had told her of their years at Hogwarts.

They had always seemed to be hiding something when they told these stories. They would start up telling their stories and the more they reminisced they'd get more and more into the story, but then they would stop abruptly as if they were about to say something they didn't want to. They'd exchange sad pained looks and then continue on with the story although with much less enthusiasm.

She stopped coming out of her thoughts back to the present and looked down at the photo in her hand. It was a picture of her mother and father and boy with black hair whom she'd never seen or heard of before. Her father was standing in the middle his arms wrapped around the shoulders of both her mother and the boy. They were smiling and laughing. They looked extremely happy all three of them. They were quite clearly best friends. Lily wondered why she didn't who the boy was. She peered at him more closely. Her eyes scanned over his extremely untidy jet-black hair, his glasses and then as her eyes fell on his forehead she gasped and dropped the photo. "Oh My God, no way, no way, NO WAY," she thought. "I just imagined it that's all,' she assured herself. She slowly picked up the picture and looked very closely at the boy's forehead again. But sure enough it was there quite clearly etched in the middle of his forehead: a dark lightning bolt shaped scar. Harry Potter that was Harry Potter laughing with her parents. Bloody Hell, Harry Potter, the boy who lived, the boy who had defeated the Dark Lord, who had died saving the world from Voldemort.

Lily was so consumed in her thoughts she didn't notice her mother come in and walk up behind her. " What are you doing, honey?" Hermione asked making Lily jump straight out of her skin. But then Hermione's eyes fell on the picture. She dropped to her knees lightly next to her daughter and picked up the picture. Lily saw tears welling in her mother's eyes. " Oh," was all she managed. After a few moments of starring teary eyed at the picture she turned to her daughter. Seeing the confused look on Lily's face she said, "Don't worry I'll explain." Lily watched her mother stand up slowly, the picture still clutched tightly in her hand. She sat on the couch with her elbows on her knees her chin resting in one hand gazing at the picture in the other. Silent tears slid gently down her face. She looked up at her daughter, took a deep breath and began to tell her everything. She told her how she and Lily's father had met on the train. How Ron and Harry had been instant friends. The story of the Halloween troll made her gasp and then laugh as she heard how her dad had beaten it. Lily had heard school stories before but none like this. Some of the stories she knew because they were passed around school like some kind of urban legend like the troll or the chamber of secrets but she never knew her parents had been so deeply involved. She didn't even know that her mother had been petrified in second year.

Her mother was about halfway through the story of their third year when her father came home. He walked into the living room and looked at the scene in front of him. His eyes went from Lily's awestruck face to Hermione's tear stained cheeks. He strode quickly over to his wife saying, " Hermione what's wr-," he stopped mid sentence as his eyes fell on the picture in her hands. He made a sort of strangled noise in the back of his throat and sat down next to his wife. Hermione turned to look at her husband, smiled, nodded and said, " She knows." Ron took a long deep breath as if trying to compose himself then said, " So where are we in the story." "Third year**," **Hermione replied. " Oh that was uhm … an interesting year," he said smiling to himself. Then Ron and Hermione launched together into their story.

When they finished the story they looked each at their daughter wryly waiting for her reaction. " I just have one question." They nodded. " Why didn't you ever tell me?" They looked almost as confused by their secrecy as she felt. " I guess we just never wanted to talk about," Ron muttered, " it hurt to much." Hermione nodded, " I think we were trying to suppress it, like maybe if we pretended we had never known him then his death would be less painful." This time Ron nodded, he felt Hermione was right as usual. Seeing her parents discomfort she decided it was time to end the conversation. She stood up and hugged each of her parents around the neck, " I'm glad you told me," she told them quietly. " I think I'm gonna go to bed now." She turned and skipped up the stairs and walked quickly to her room. She fell back on her bed lost in thoughts as she gazed up to the ceiling. She was so exhausted by this new discovery that it didn't take her long to fall asleep. She dreamt of her parents and Harry Potter going on their adventures in Hogwarts. They were so vivid she felt like she was right next to them living it with them. When she woke up light was streaming threw her window and her stomach was growling painfully. Guess that's what I get for skipping dinner she thought. She stood stretching and yawning. She started to head downstairs to find the breakfast that she knew was waiting for her. Out in the hall something different caught her eye and she turned already guessing what it was. There on the wall in a beautiful wooden frame next to her parents wedding photo was the picture she had found yesterday. They were laughing and smiling just like yesterday and she smiled with them as she made her way down the stairs to the kitchen.

ok so what did yall think it just came to me one day and kinda got stuck in my head


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